


High Seas

by daystarsearcher



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), UNIT: the New Series (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Clara is getting around and living her best life, F/F, F/M, Osgood is dealing with internalized homophobia and lusting after an older woman, Pirates, also mentions of past Danny/Clara, and Missy/Clara, and River/Clara, and Twelve/Clara, and Twelve/River/Clara, extremely dubious consent in flashback in Chapter Two, like you do, mentions of past Josh/Osgood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:46:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27840217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daystarsearcher/pseuds/daystarsearcher
Summary: Kate is a dashing pirate. Osgood is a captive noblewoman. The story is an excuse for sexual tension.
Relationships: Ashildr | Lady Me/Clara Oswin Oswald, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart/Petronella Osgood, Petronella Osgood/Clara Oswin Oswald
Comments: 30
Kudos: 36





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just as there is a certain deep pleasure in obsessively comparing outdoor furniture upholstery fabrics to get the correct width of stripes when sewing a _Planet of the Spiders_ Sarah Jane jacket (apparently nobody makes normal fabric with that wide of stripes anymore, thanks, the seventies), so there is a pleasure in obsessively researching a time and place for a completely historically accurate setting for a story. 
> 
> …on the other hand, just as there is a light, frothy pleasure in throwing a two-minute closet cosplay of the Sixth Doctor with whatever non-matching clothing items you have to hand, so there is the pleasure of creating an alternate universe where one freely mixes and matches social attitudes and levels of technology as one pleases in order to focus on what’s really important, i.e. gradually ramping sexual tension. 
> 
> This story is the latter.

“Is this _really_ the best option?”

Osgood winced at the woman’s tone, staring down at the sumptuous rug that covered the floor of the captain’s cabin, scarlet and gold and emerald green twining together. She was fairly certain she had seen that rug rolled in the cargo hold of their former ship when she was avoiding having tea with her sister. The pirates certainly hadn’t wasted any time.

Said pirates tightened their grip on her arms, as if she was going to try to run away _now,_ when all of the soldiers who might have helped her were in the cells with her sister and the rest of the hostage nobility, and she was standing in front of a woman who could cut her in half as easily as she could sneeze, and sound only mildly exasperated about it.

“We can’t take the straw out of the cells, ma’am; it’s the only insulation the prisoners have got against the damp.”

Osgood wheezed just thinking about it.

“And the crew quarters…”

“More straw.”

A sigh. “Very well.”

Fingers gripped Osgood’s chin and tilted it upwards, forcing Osgood to look directly into the eyes of Captain Kate Stewart, scourge of the high seas.

Osgood suddenly forgot how to breathe for a reason having absolutely nothing to do with terror:

Captain Stewart was bloody _gorgeous._

Her fingers tightened on Osgood’s chin.

“I don’t have much use for the aristocracy, Lady Petronella,” she said, a warning glint in her eye.

“Oh, that’s all right,” Osgood’s traitorous mouth managed to wheeze without her permission. “We’re not very useful, as a rule.”

The Captain raised an eyebrow. Osgood’s heart stopped entirely.

The corner of the Captain’s mouth twitched up, just a fraction. “Yes, well—” The grip on Osgood’s chin shifted slightly. “Nice as it is to meet a self-aware one, I assure you—” her gaze swung rapidly away. “What the blazes are you doing?”

Osgood was very, very aware of the continued pressure of strong fingers against her skin, but she dared cut her eyes to the side just enough to see that a sheepish pirate had just tossed a blanket and pillow to the ground next to the wall.

“Uh…supplies for the prisoner, ma’am?”

The captain removed her hand from Osgood’s face—Osgood reeled mentally, and a little physically, at the sudden vacancy—to pinch the bridge of her nose. “A hammock, Smith. Get the prisoner a hammock.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Shake the dust out first!” she yelled at his retreating back.

She surveyed the wall ruefully. “We’re going to have to anchor it here, and…here, I think,” she told the guards. “Might as well go dig up the blacksmith, get a couple of rings. Get some rope while you’re at it.”

“Ma’am!” the guards said, but didn’t move.

Kate Stewart cast an amused glance over Osgood. “Go on. I don’t think I’m in terrible danger at the moment.”

At that they vacated the cabin, and Osgood and Captain Stewart were alone in the captain’s quarters. 

Osgood swallowed hard.

“I don’t ruin my wallpaper for just anyone.” Kate Stewart’s voice was low and…faintly amused? Then, sharp as steel: “Don’t annoy me.”

The fear must have flared bright on her face, or possibly through her full-body cringe, because the captain’s expression, while not exactly softening, grew less stormy. A medium-sized gale at worst, Osgood thought giddily.

She laid her hand on Osgood’s arm.

“Nobody’s going to hurt you,” she said almost gently. “In fact, we’ll do our best to keep you in tip top shape—we’d get no ransom if we let you die, after all.”

“Ah,” Osgood said articulately. It was hard to think of any other possible responses when so much of her brain processing power was devoted to hoping that her face was not as transparent about…other things…as it was with her fear.

“First time?” Kate Stewart asked, and Osgood managed to choke on air.

A slight frown, and then it cleared, the captain reaching into her pocket. “Here. Your medication.”

Osgood took it gratefully, the pressure in her lungs easing.

“It _is_ your first time being captured, isn’t it?” Captain Stewart said, and it was almost gentle again. Matter-of-fact, as if getting a hole blasted in your ship and evacuating into the waiting arms and manacles of a motley pirate crew were on par with being rained out of a game of croquet. “Hazard of the job: I do forget that not every navy ship has a crew of seasoned officers, and not every pleasure yacht is a group of debauched seventy-year-olds out to revisit the glory days of their Grand Tour.”

“That’s…specific,” Osgood said.

Kate gave a snort. “There’s a story there, if Smith doesn’t get back with that hammock soon.” She slouched back against the wall next to Osgood, hands in the pockets of her dark, crisply creased trousers. “Let me give you the run down: we’re fourteen days out of port from our preferred go-between for these kind of deals. Your servants and the crew will be let go with their belongings and enough of your coin to support them for a week while they look for a berth back to the motherland. You and your fellow nobles will have your identities confirmed, values estimated and then slightly inflated for bargaining purposes, and then given some cells considerably nicer than even this—” she gestured around her quarters—“while messenger pigeons are sent to your family with the lamentable news that the service they entrusted their sons and daughters to was not _quite_ up to snuff.” She flashed a brief, wolfish grin. “Your dear old mum and dad sell a couple of heirlooms, and you’re home before dinner.”

“You’ve done this a lot.”

“Have it down to a science.”

Osgood fidgeted for a moment, unsure of how far she could push in this conversation. The captain had seemed less bloodthirsty than mildly annoyed in all her interactions with Osgood thus far, but still…She took a deep breath. “I…I have a sister.”

“Yes. Chloe Osgood. She doesn’t seem to share your antipathy to straw, so don’t even think about asking for her to come here.”

“Will she…she will be all right?”

Kate Stewart shot her a piercing look that after a moment softened at the edges. “No one will hurt her. Older sister, isn’t she? The heiress? Even more valuable than you.”

It was a literal value judgment, from a pirate. It didn’t mean anything beyond what profit she could be expected to make. 

It shouldn’t have hurt so much.

“Will you tell her…I’m all right?” It felt like the sort of thing she should say. Chloe had, after all, been quite vocal in her protests when the pirates had shown up to drag a wheezing Osgood out of their cell, raining thunder and damnation down on their heads if they didn’t bring her little sister back immediately. It was probably churlish to still be angry—to still be quietly, incandescently furious—with her for all that she had done before they set sail.

Osgood was furious anyway.

Kate gave her a measuring look. “I’ll pass it along.”

She didn’t look away, and for a moment it seemed like she might say something else, like she might probe at the slightly brittle tone that coated Osgood’s words, and Osgood felt her insides fizz with a potent mixture of nerves and…anticipation?

But then Smith returned, and Kate Stewart peeled away from the wall with orders rolling off her tongue, and the moment—the strangest moment Osgood had ever experienced, standing next to a woman who held her life in her hands and looking into those clear, calm eyes and thinking _maybe I could actually tell her_ \--was gone.

#

Osgood shifted slightly, and the chain clanked.

She darted a quick glance at Captain Stewart, who was still at her desk, navigation charts and resupply lists threatening to drift off it with every roll of the ship over the waves. The older woman seemed completely absorbed in her task, chewing absentmindedly on the tip of her quill she scoured the papers with her eyes, and Osgood breathed a sigh of relief.

When the rest of the pirates had returned to the captain’s cabin, Osgood had, very briefly, become the center of attention as her hammock was hung and her chains affixed to a new set of rings in the walls (Captain Stewart letting out a wistful sigh as the iron punctured a tasteful fleur-de-lis). 

After that, though, the crew had respectfully exited, and the captain had acted as though she wasn’t there. Not that the alternative would have necessarily been any better, she thought, glancing nervously at the other woman when she huffed at something on one of the lists and crossed it out with a few quick slashes like she was stabbing the paper.

She had barely even looked at Osgood when dinner was delivered—and side note, Osgood was definitely not complaining about the dinner; apparently being chained up in the captain’s cabin rather than the brig meant that instead of hardtack, gruel, and a wizened lime, you got seared swordfish, strawberries with cream, and a glass of red—directing her man to place Osgood’s portion within the prisoner’s reach with a toss of her head as she scribbled notations on a map. To be fair, she also didn’t look at her crew member, or her own dinner—she ate one-handed, somehow managing not to blot the papers with a single drop of food or drink the way Osgood would’ve done.

All of this invisibility had given Osgood prime opportunity for observation. 

Surreptitiously, of course, out of the corner of her eye—just because the woman wasn’t an out-and-out villain with a hook hand and a maniacal laugh didn’t mean she’d take kindly to her prisoner surveilling her. Osgood had taken note of the way the captain worried her lip when doing figures, or sat up a little taller and scuffed her leather boots against the floor when she found something interesting. The way she would sometimes absentmindedly rake her fingers through her hair, undoing the careful upknot, the candlelight catching glints and gleams like spun gold— 

Yes. Well.

Those dangerous waters noted and avoided by the skin of her teeth, Osgood had moved on to memorizing every detail of the room—the looming mahogany desk currently spilling over with papers, the sprawling bed with teak frame and sumptuous red and purple duvet, the brocade privacy curtain that gapped open just enough to reveal a large iron tub. The beloved wallpaper interrupted only by a small painting of two small children, at a perfect angle for Kate Stewart to see every time she looked up from her desk, if she ever looked up from her desk, which Osgood was rather doubting at the moment. The aforementioned rug looted from the hold of Osgood’s former passage, already looking a little worse for wear from all the dirty boots that had stamped back and forth across it this day, probably more riff-raff than the captain usually let grace her door in an entire month.

The floor-to-ceiling bookcase stuffed with more tomes than even Osgood could read in that time.

Osgood would cut off her left little finger for a book right now.

Fourteen days out of port, the captain had said.

The manacles clanked together again as Osgood leaned slightly forward, towards the books, and she froze.

“If you promise not to be stupid, we can get rid of those shackles.”

Osgood started so violently that said shackles made a noise like several cymbals being dropped on top of a serving platter.

“Well?” Kate Stewart still hadn’t looked up from her work, but there was the ghost of a smile twitching at her lips. “Are you going to try to stab me in my sleep with a letter opener? Or can we risk taking those off?”

“Taking..these off?” The words didn’t seem any more real when they came out of her mouth instead. 

“You’ve been eyeing my books like you either want to eat them or marry them. Assuming what you actually want is to read them, I’ve no objection if you confine yourself to the bottom two shelves.”

“Oh!” For a second it was the only word Osgood could think of, her whole brain lit with delight as she took in the count of the books she had been allowed at a glance: thirty-two, and some of them thick enough to last a whole day.... She swallowed; was this a trick? “Yes. Please. That would be—yes.”

“All right.” The captain stood, stretching out the kinks in her spine, and selected a key from the ring at her belt. Her hands were warm as she touched Osgood’s wrists; Osgood tensed, hearing the echo of her Chloe’s shriek the day she had discovered Osgood kissing her lady’s maid, _Everyone can tell, why do you think I haven’t got a betrothal yet, everyone knows and it’s only because I’ve covered for you that--_

The cuffs fell with a clank to the floor.

The captain’s fingers lingered at Osgood’s palm.

“Soft hands,” she murmured. “But then I don’t suppose you’ve worked a day in your life.”

Osgood swallowed. “I…suppose not.”

Captain Stewart skated her fingers over Osgood’s pulse point—could she feel the way her heart sped up?—before, to Osgood’s surprise, kneeling in front of her.

“Ah, what are you—”

“Were you planning to fetch your book via telekinesis?” the captain asked with a raised eyebrow, her key already slotted into the ankle cuff.

Osgood almost blurted out that she had in fact conducted several experiment on psi powers with whatever equipment she could scrounge from her father’s old lab—her mother had thrown most of it out ten years ago in a fit of spring cleaning—with Clara helping her take the notes, but that brought up the memory of Clara. Babbling excitedly at Clara about her findings, hugging Clara when one of the subjects guessed the hidden card right, rambling on about control groups as they walked together in the rose garden to keep from launching herself at Clara’s lips. 

Of Clara launching herself at Osgood instead, all impetuous grace and confident hands.

Of Chloe walking in on them. 

The experiments had been inconclusive anyway.

“Ah, no,” she muttered instead. “Ah, thank you.”

Kate Stewart waved away her thanks as if it were an insect in the air; went back to her desk and shook out a new chart—roughly, like it had personally offended her. Had Osgood personally offended her? “It’s nothing. The chains were driving me mad. This way there’s at least a decent chance we’ll both survive until we lay anchor.”

#

To her surprise, Osgood was not chained up again when morning dawned and the captain had to make her rounds on the ship. Instead, a jerk of her chin summoned Osgood to step quickly along behind her. 

They stopped in the galley, where Captain Stewart had a cheerful word for the cook as she filled up a tankard with coffee that smelled like it was brewed in a tar pit, and grabbed a couple rolls for each of them. Afterwards, they stopped by the quartermasters and Osgood was obliged to duck behind a curtain and change into a pair of trousers, a linen shirt, and a set of hobnail boots to avoid her dress being dirtied— _We can sell that too, you know,_ the captain had said wryly. Then it was on to a few surprise inspections of various bulkheads and bits of rigging that Osgood desperately wished she had read up more before embarking on her previous journey; she felt her silence like something stuck in her throat that she couldn’t quite clear, nothing to contribute. Not that it seemed as if any particular contribution on her part were required, but-- _I don’t have much use for the aristocracy_ \--

Osgood _wanted_ to contribute.

Around noon Kate Stewart consigned her to the care of the first mate, Shindi, a rather stiff and proper man who carried himself with such a dignified bearing that Osgood felt he wouldn’t have looked one bit out of place at one of her mother’s stuffiest dinner parties, never mind all the tattoos and scars. So for a while she trailed after him instead, watching and listening as he gave gruff approval to a course through a tricky patch of currents, or berated a sailor for a sloppy knot. She blurted her first question before she could stop to second guess it, and when he did nothing more than raise an eyebrow before answering, she found all the other questions spilling out: the effect of tides on different parts of the ocean, the prevailing winds at this time of year, whether studies on been done on the particular blends of fabric most efficacious in the manufacture of sails.

He was somehow, for all his clear strength and martial experience, infinitely less intimidating than Captain Stewart, and though he never quite smiled, as the day went on his answers came more readily and less gruffly, and Osgood got the feeling that she had managed, against all obstacles, not to annoy him to death. Perhaps even, just a little bit, impress him. 

As the sun reached its zenith, they came to a stop at a spot on the deck where Shindi could observe the crew swabbing the wood. Osgood watched this with him for a moment, before her attention was arrested by a figure at the helm. The captain’s coat was wrapped tightly around her shoulders as she stared off into the infinite expanse of blue black water, an unbending tower in the constant wind; her hair glinted in the sun’s ray, a wisp teased loose by a stray gust.

She looked back at Shindi, and before she could stop herself, stammered:

“I—I would like to be useful.”

Shindi looked at her with that raised eyebrow, a silence that spoke volumes, and Osgood quickly looked away, gestured at the men and women swabbing the desk. “I could—I know I’m not experienced, but I could learn. I could take on some of the tasks. I could contribute, and not—” Not be a drain on the ship’s resources. Not be a weight that the captain or her subordinates had to drag around all day until they could pawn her off for slightly less money than her sister. Not confirm everything Captain Stewart thought about the aristocracy, _I don’t have much use for--_

But Shindi was shaking his head. “No work for the prisoners. Captain’s orders.”

Osgood hung her head. “Oh.”

Stupid to think she could be useful to anyone. She was still the same person she had always been, head in clouds, doing pointless experiments with butterflies in the greenhouse, taking apart old hunting rifles and getting gun grease on her best dress. Her family had tried to tell her to stop, to learn to sit still and be decorative, and she had failed in even that. 

“It would be taking advantage, you see.” Osgood couldn’t look at the first mate, her embarrassment at the rebuff still burning bright on her cheeks, but his tone had gone almost grandfatherly, and Osgood wondered at that, at that kind explanatory voice that she had only heard from her father when she was very small and her curiosity had been endearing rather than a liability. “She’s not running a slave ship, she says.” He gave a bark of a laugh. “Honest kidnap work, that’s what we like!”

Osgood couldn’t help laughing at that too. 

“If, if I’m in the way—” she began, and picked up speed when she saw he was about to open his mouth and spout something chivalrous; really, in another life he could have been one of those retired generals who spent their days drinking port and shooting clay pigeons and going to her mother’s soirees—“You could take me back to the cabin. I don’t mind being restrained until the captain gets back; she let me read one of her books and there’s still a good three hundred pages on navigation workarounds one can try if there isn’t an astrolabe to hand.”

Shindi gave her an appraising look. “Like astronomy, do you?”

“I love astronomy!” Osgood couldn’t help but light up. “At home, I had several telescopes, though I had to build the last few myself when my father cut off my allowance after I accidentally blew up the greenhouse—”

She cut herself off, flushing. How was it that she couldn’t open her mouth without it being about money, about privilege, about wealth so deep and unquestioned that it was baked into her every word? 

“Interested in explosives as well, eh?” Shindi said dryly, and Osgood felt her shoulders loosen at the way he skimmed right over her faux pas. He chewed the inside of his cheek for a few seconds, apparently deep in thought, and then nodded decisively. “Tell you what, you can look over our star charts. Captain has to go over them anyway, so it’s not as if you’re doing any real work. But it’ll help it go faster if someone who’s a dab hand at maths has a go at them first, and it’ll keep you occupied.”

#

“These are very good.”

Osgood looked up, probably too quickly, from the same page she had been trying to read for the last twenty minutes, ever since Kate Stewart had pulled out the star charts Osgood had spent the afternoon going over and said, _So let’s see how well you know your sky, then._ She tried not to sound like this was what she had been doing. “Oh. Good.”

The captain was watching her, dark eyes assessing, as if Petronella were a ship whose hull she was not certain would hold under pressure. “Shindi did explain it isn’t necessary?”

“Oh, yes.” Osgood’s fingers twisted a little at the page beneath them before she stilled them. “But I wanted to. I wanted—something to occupy me. And I enjoyed it.”

“Did you now?” A small smile. “Well, I suppose you can keep at it for the next couple weeks then.”

Osgood let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “Thank you.”

“Anything for less paperwork—” The captain stretched, suppressing a yawn. “That said, I sent the preliminary reports of our haul to our intermediaries last night via pigeon, so I may join in appreciating my literature, though perhaps—” her glance took in the title of Osgood’s book --“perhaps something a _shade_ less technical.”

Her smile settled warm and soft like recognition in Osgood’s chest. _Of course you’ve chosen that,_ the smile seemed to say with no mockery at all, only a kind of pleased confirmation.

Kate plucked a slim novel from the same two shelves she had assigned her charge, and settled back in her chair.

Osgood supposed the ensuing silence should have been awkward. Nothing had materially changed in the relations between the captain and herself. She was still a prisoner. 

She was still keeping secrets.

It was only when Osgood finished the book and looked up to see that so much time had passed that Captain Stewart had changed into nightclothes and dozed off in bed, the novel spilled open over her hands, all the lights put out except for a single lantern that cast a halo just over her hammock so that Osgood could keep reading, that she realized that the silence had not been awkward at all.

#

The harbor city of the captive brokers was beautiful.

The sea shone blue-green as it dashed itself against the chalk-white cliffs that the ship had needed to thread its way past to find shelter in the bustling port. The call of merchants echoed over the waters, and scent of spices drifted through the air, even before the mist parted to reveal buildings of red clay interspersed with towers of white marble, roofs of red tile on the former and sparkling quartz shingles on the latter. Ships with flags of a thousand nations clustered where the water met the land, like gems in a crown.

Osgood watched it all from the prow of the pirate ship, a step to the right and back from Captain Stewart.

She was back in her finery, freshly laundered and pressed, and the collar of her dress was already choking her. 

She had worn sailors’ clothes for less than two weeks, but she found she already missed the freedom of trousers, the anonymity of the simple cut of the shirt. Now, beribboned and laced within an inch of her life, she felt like nothing so much as a lump of half-baked cake gussied up with frosting roses. 

A commodity, and a substandard one at that.

Calls drifted out over the water: the price of saffron had risen, the price of silk had dropped. Osgood’s stomach clenched.

“It will be all right.”

Osgood’s head jerked swiftly to Kate Stewart’s face, but the captain was still observing the city through her telescope. How had she known what was going through Osgood’s head? She continued, her voice measured and low. “The people here are trustworthy. You’ll be well taken care of.”

“I—” Osgood’s words, never her firmest allies, refused to come out of her mouth in any kind of order. She managed to bite back, _You were so much less terrifying than I thought you would be._ “Thank you.”

“And of course,” the captain went on, ignoring Osgood’s attempt at appreciation, “you’ll get to spend some time with your sister again.” She nodded towards where the pirates were beginning to bring the rest of the prisoners on deck. “Go on. I’m sure you have plenty to talk about.”

#

Osgood strenuously managed to avoid talking to Chloe about anything during the entire docking and disembarkation process, as well as their forced march to a white marble prison a half mile from the harbor. It wasn’t easy, given that Chloe seemed determined to charge through the crowd of fellow prisoners to pigeonhole her sister, but judicious use of fake clumsiness, selective deafness, and sudden urgent needs to check in with, say, Lady Hortensia who happened to be on the opposite side of the huddled mass of prisoners to Chloe, served her well. It became even easier once they left the dock and the pirates kettled them together so tightly as they walked down the narrow streets that they could barely move their arms, let alone worm their way between the bodies of the other prisoners to make it to the opposite side of the street— _not that Chloe would have done that anyway,_ Osgood thought bitterly. So sensitive to scandal even now, so concerned about dignity and reputation.

All good things, however, had to come to an end.

Once they reached the prison—which true enough to the captain’s promise, resembled nothing so much as a castle—they were herded into a courtyard redolent with the perfume of tropical flowers. The pirates went off to negotiate, leaving them guarded by a few bored men who clearly possessed the swords and the muscles to wield them should the captives prove it necessary, but in the moment did nothing more than rattle off a memorized list of rules and restrictions before pointing said captives towards a series of sumptuous pillows around a fountain ringed with crystal glasses.

Osgood dipped her glass into the fountain to discover that it dispensed a cool and frothy mint drink. It did not appear to be alcoholic, which was a pity given that Chloe was now marching towards her, and Osgood could not see a single avenue of escape that the men with swords would not take a very dim view of.  
Chloe caught up to her, and swept her up and down with a look like she had caught Osgood sneaking back into the house after an excursion to the woods to hunt for rare lichen samples. Osgood barely managed to stop herself from instinctively looking down for burs on the hem of her dress.

“Sister,” Chloe said.

“Chloe,” Osgood acknowledged.

Chloe pressed her lips tight at that, but pretended she hadn’t heard the slight.  
She had always been good at pretending just well enough that you knew she was doing it, to twist that little knife of guilt. 

“The guards said you’d taken to wearing men’s clothes,” she said with a sniff. “I’m relieved to find that isn’t the case.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Osgood said; her voice broke just slightly on the second to last word, and she felt the heat of tears spring into existence behind her eyes—she hated it, she hated that she had spent two weeks free of this and in the moment it all came back, all Chloe’s power, despite everything, to wield disapproval and disappointment. To make Osgood feel grubby and small. “It was true.”

“Hmm.” Her older sister managed to pack a court case’s worth of deliberation into the single syllable. “I suppose she made you? The Stewart woman?”

Osgood felt her shoulders rise; didn’t entirely understand why. “Not exactly. It wasn’t practical. We had to keep the dress clean. For today—”

“Hmmmm,” Chloe said again, this time drawing the syllable out like she was tasting a morsel of food she suspected had gone off. “I see.”

She took a step away from Osgood then, and Osgood couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief even though she knew it had to be a feint, because Chloe had not yet sunk her teeth into the meat of whatever she was after. The older girl picked up her own crystal glass, tapping her elegant nails against it thoughtfully, before dipping it into the fountain and taking a delicate sip.

She gazed out over the courtyard, the tangles of lush foliage with startling wine-red and sunset-purple blooms in contrast to the white tile, as cool and serene as if she were the lady of this estate rather than a hostage. Osgood saw quite a few of the male captives, and at least one of the guards, send admiring glances her way. Their gazes lingered in awe at her slender figure, at her graceful hands, at the delicate line of her throat.

The jealousy that squirmed in Osgood’s stomach was old and well-known, and she nodded to it, one longtime acquaintance to another.

“She certainly seems strong-willed,” Chloe said suddenly, her eyes fastened on a bit of brickwork twenty feet away. “That captain. Probably quite used to having her way.”

“Hmm,” Osgood said, purposefully to annoy her.

It was successful, judging by the way Chloe’s jaw tightened before she relaxed it, determined not to do a thing that might prematurely wrinkle her visage. “It was very convenient how her bedroom was absolutely the only place they could take you, wasn’t it?”

All the breath left Osgood’s lungs as surely as if they had been pierced with a sword. She choked on air, her throat spasming.

Chloe was at her side immediately, consternation and what almost could have been alarm flitting across her features as she pushed Osgood into a seated position, her hands moving rapidly to Osgood’s pockets. “Where are your—”

“I can manage!” Osgood shoved her away, her shaking hands finding her medication as black spots danced in the corner of her vision. 

Her hands kept shaking even as the pressure in her chest eased. Of course that was what Chloe thought. Of course Chloe thought the worst of her—thought the worst of the captain, who had been nothing but kind—

And if Osgood said one word in defense of her, Chloe would take it as confirmation of all her suspicions.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re implying,” she said stiffly instead.

Chloe sighed, and set her glass down. “Don’t make me say it. Don’t make me be so crude.”

“No one is making _you_ do anything.”

That one struck at least a glancing blow; Chloe’s gaze faltered for second before snapping back up, self-righteousness stamped in every feature. “I’m only looking out for you! Heavens knows you’re gullible, going for that jumped-up little thing before, but this woman could actually harm—”

“Your reputation? Our family’s reputation? Certainly not mine, not more than it’s already been.” The words, thought a thousand times but never spoken, burst out: “You saw to that.”

#

The next few hours were spent in tense silence between the two of them, papered over by the bursts of chatter as one or another lady or gentleman came to pay their respects to Chloe and also—reluctantly, belatedly—Osgood. The stream of them was steady enough that Chloe would not dare risk scandal by reprising their argument within earshot, but there were only so many hostages, and Osgood watched with foreboding as the number that had yet to converse with her sister shrank smaller and smaller.

Which was why, when Captain Stewart reappeared on the scene, Osgood practically leapt to her feet in relief.

In the next second, she hesitated. If she ran to her, Chloe would think—

The captain solved her dilemma by striding directly towards her, hands shoved in her pockets, a scowl on her face.

“Lady Petronella,” she said. “I would speak with you in private.”

Osgood opened her mouth, but Chloe was already drawing herself up to her full height.

“Madame,” she said with glacial coldness. “We are no longer your prisoners, and are not obliged to bend to your whims.

The captain raised her eyebrow. “It is a private matter, and does not concern you.”

“On the contrary.” Chloe linked her arm through Osgood’s; Osgood barely managed to restrain herself from pulling free, but she saw the captain’s eye track her twitch away from her sister’s touch. Chloe’s voice rang out loud and clear through the hush of the garden: “Anything you want to say to my sister you can say in front of me.”

Kate’s eyes met Osgood’s. “Is that so, Lady Petronella?”

Everyone in the courtyard was staring at them. “Yes.”

“Very well.” The captain sighed. “We seem to have run into a slight problem.” Her scowl deepened. “Your parents claim they can only raise enough money for one daughter, and so they have chosen to bring home their heir.” 

Chloe’s arm twitched where it brushed against Osgood’s. Osgood felt her heart crowding her throat. She hadn’t though they would do this. She hadn’t thought she had disappointed them this badly.

“They won’t be paying your ransom.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for Osgood's angsty backstory in this chapter, which includes some extremely dubious consent.

“Walk with me?” Captain Stewart asked Osgood.

Osgood opened her mouth, not certain what she was going to say.

Chloe beat her to the punch.

“My sister will not be going anywhere without me,” she said haughtily.

“Your parents seem to disagree,” Kate said, her voice dry as bone.

Osgood felt an iron band tightening around her chest; she fought not to wheeze. Not now, not when everyone was looking at her—

“And in the short term—” Kate Stewart glanced meaningfully at the men with swords before resting her gaze back on Osgood. Osgood saw her note the rigidity of Osgood’s shoulder, the tremble of her breath fighting to enter her ribcage. “I believe that’s entirely up to her.”

Osgood took as deep of a breath as she was able. Chloe’s fingers dug into her arm like claws, trying, as always, to keep her in her place.

“Yes. Please.”

#

They had made their way up to the fortress wall overlooking the sea before Kate Stewart spoke.

“Lady Petronella—”

“Please don’t,” Osgood said. The rest of the words rushed out before she could stop them: “I hate that name. I’ve always hated that name. It’s not me, it’s—it’s this spinster great-aunt who crochets and does missionary work that they’ve all decided I’ll be. That’s the only thing I can be that they’ll ever accept—”

It hit Osgood that she had just told a pirate captain—a pirate captain who no longer had any concrete reason for keeping her alive, and had just walked her up to a very high point—what to do. She gulped the rest of the words down.

But Kate Stewart only nodded, casting her glance out to the breaking waves, cerulean under the burning sun. “What should I call you, then?”

Clara had called her Nell, but that would be too forward of her to ask. Why was she even thinking about what Clara would have called her? “Osgood is fine.” 

Her father had called her that, when she was so little that she couldn’t properly say her given name, and some of the servants kept calling her that for years afterward; it still fit the best. 

“Well, then, Osgood—” The captain’s gaze flicked down to Osgood’s shoulders, still trembling a bit with the effort of breathing, especially after all those stairs, and for a second something like concern narrowed her eyes. But then it was gone, and when she spoke, her voice was utterly neutral: “I was counting on a certain profit margin for this trip, now considerably reduced. I would like an explanation.”

Osgood’s throat closed up for reasons that had nothing to do with her asthma.  
What could she say? How could she possibly explain? How would the captain look at her when she knew—

“I couldn’t help but notice a distinct lack of sisterly affection between yourself and Chloe,” Captain Stewart said after several seconds of silence had passed. “I would guess that has something to do with it?” 

“We’ve never been close,” Osgood managed. She squeezed her eyes shut. _Tell it like it happened to someone else. Tell it like it wasn’t you._ “I was in the greenhouse. With Clara. My—lady’s maid. I kissed her—she kissed me—we kissed. Chloe saw.”

She had to take her medication then; she could feel that she was going to faint if she did not. She fumbled with the container, kept her gaze on it even after she finished. She couldn’t look at Kate’s face.

“They sent you away for that?”

Osgood couldn’t read anything in the pirate’s voice.

“No.” Her fingers were turning white where they clutched at her medicine. “Not just that.” She looked at her fingers and thought about blood vessels compressing, about pressure and force. “She was worried. Chloe. About—if it was going to continue, with—if her suitors found out, if their families found out that someone in our family—she decided I needed to be fixed.”

Osgood felt more than sees the captain’s body start, lit gunpowder barely contained.

_“Fixed?”_

“There was a visiting captain of the local regiment,” Osgood said. The words were coming very mechanically now, as if she had laid out tracks for them. “Very handsome, very charming. But with a…reputation, when ladies were unchaperoned. Chloe invited him to tea and then had a very pressing matter to attend to elsewhere.”

Kate Stewart swore. The word broke the air like cannon fire.

Osgood glanced up at her quickly, startled. Every line of the captain’s body radiated fury; her shoulders tight, fists clenched. Osgood’s heart struggled like a trapped dove against her ribcage; she looked at the ground, breathing heavily.

“I was willing,” she said. “I was—I went along with it.” She had to close her eyes, remembering—it had felt good. To be wanted, and by someone as handsome as Joshua Carter, who kissed so well, whose hands were so warm as they slid to her stays, starting to unfasten them—“He was gentle, and…proficient. It just—I thought she was coming back soon.”

_Captain Carter’s hands tugging down her bodice, her mouth so warm and wet on breasts as he pressed her back against the sofa, and it had felt good, it had, only—his hand up her petticoats then, how far was this supposed to go? She hadn’t thought it was supposed to go this far—And she couldn’t call for Chloe or the servants because then they would see her, and she didn’t want it to end, not really, only—the movement of his hand and she didn’t know what he was doing, but it felt so good and she didn’t want it stop and then she couldn’t stop herself, she was jerking up against his hand and he smiled down at her, so pleased—_

_He undid his trousers then, and she thought he would take her hand and—but then he was pushing her skirts up, and his mouth was warm on hers again, and why wasn’t Chloe back, she had said ten minutes, she had said—and Osgood didn’t know how to say no, or if she wanted to say no, or if she was supposed to say no, it was all happening so fast—_

_And then he was inside her, and she was ruined anyway—_

“He was gentle,” she said again. “He didn’t know.” That she couldn’t fully enjoy it, that she kept wondering where Chloe was supposed to be. “He finished, and—” _A spray of wet against her thigh, a groan as he settled against her, a sticky kiss against her forehead. “Much obliged, milady.”_ “And then Chloe came back in. With our parents. They’d returned early, she had been trying to stall them—” 

Osgood closed her eyes again; wished she could make herself disappear. “They came in as he was pulling up his trousers.” 

There was no sound but Kate Stewart’s harsh breathing, and the lap of the waves against the shore.

“We were on route to a convent,” Osgood said, to break the silence or to keep from hearing whatever Kate Stewart had to say about her conduct, she didn’t know. “Chloe didn’t even get what she wanted, after all. I couldn’t be trusted not to disgrace myself again; she had to leave all her suitors behind to chaperone. And so few eligible young bachelors travel this route at this time of year.”

The scraping sound of boots against stone as the captain shifted position. “What happened to Clara?”

“She was dismissed.” Osgood tried not to remember the hurt of it, the way the next day Clara was simply gone, and no one would tell her—“She talked sometimes about a boy back home; she probably married him. I don’t know.” She took a deep breath, forced herself to open her eyes. “Our parents burned all her letters to me.”

She cut her eyes to the side. Kate Stewart still radiated barely-contained energy, like wire wrapped around a magnet. 

The captain’s hand twitched at her side.

It hit Osgood with sudden, horrible clarity that there were no guards or sentries in sight, that they were alone together in the remote place the pirate captain had led them; Chloe’s voice shrilled in her memory: _”You can’t let anyone know; as soon as a man knows you’re fallen—”_

What would she do if Kate touched her?

“Are you particularly attached to Chloe?” The captain’s voice was rough, as if she had swallowed back hard liquor too quickly. “There are a lot of cliffs around here.”

Osgood started in alarm, so flustered that she actually looked the captain full in the face. Kate Stewart’s head was tilted a little to the side as she scrutinized Osgood. There was something in her dark eyes and the set of her shoulders— 

“You’re joking,” Osgood realized, breathing deep with relief.

“Mostly,” Kate said with a shrug. She slid her hands into her pockets, looking at Osgood almost the way she had looked at her that first time in the cabin, as though she were a puzzle to solve—but now, as though she had put together all the pieces at last.

As though there was nothing wrong with the picture. 

“Though I must say I’m glad she’s not the sister with the straw allergy,” Kate went on. “I don’t get nearly enough use out of my walking plank.” 

“I wouldn’t want to cut further into your profit margin.” Osgood hazarded a tremulous smile.

But something shuttered in Captain Stewart’s face; her eyes went distant.

The warmth that had begun to bloom inside Osgood turned cold. 

“What—” she tried to keep her voice steady—“what do I do now?”

“There are options,” Kate said. There was a careful casualness to her voice, as though she were laying out menu items for dinner and did not want to prejudice the choice. “You could take the same deal as your servants. The clothes on your back—well, _some_ clothes on your back, we would sell these ones—and a nominal sum, enough to support you for a week while you try to book passage home. Or to the convent, if you prefer.”

“I—I suppose.” How much was a nominal sum? How much did food cost, or lodging? How did you book passage?

“There are worse things than a convent,” Kate went on. “I’ve heard many of the sisters pursue studies in mathematics, or botany. And by their nature they do tend to attract women who…enjoy each other’s company.”

Heat suffused Osgood’s face. “I—”

“You could also stay here,” Captain Stewart said. “I understand that our hosts also run a training school of sorts, for courtesans. There’s a decent market out there for exotic noblewomen.”

Osgood’s stomach dropped; she stumbled, reaching out to steady herself, but there was only air—

Kate caught her arm before she fell. 

“You would choose your suitors,” she said, her voice softer. Her thumb rubbed gently, once, over the fabric of Osgood’s sleeve. “It would offer a kind of respectability—the social mores are different here. You would be a part of polite society, with the kind of income to which you have been accustomed.”

“I…I _couldn’t.”_ She couldn’t force any more words out. The whole world felt like it was swirling around her, nothing solid except the captain’s hand holding her up. And that would be gone in seconds, leaving her with only the choice, poverty or--was that all she was good for now? Would anyone even want her? 

“There is a third option.” Kate let go of Osgood’s arm abruptly, her eyes sliding away from the younger woman’s gaze. She crossed her arms, looked out over the sea. “You could come with us.”

Osgood’s heart leapt inside her chest. She was saying—the star charts and the two weeks, had she—“I would…I would join the crew?”

“No.” The word dashed Osgood’s hopes as sharply as glass cracking against stone. “You don’t have the experience for that.” 

_I don’t have much use for—_

“Then…?” Osgood managed.

Kate Stewart turned back to her, her gaze appraising. The set of her chin not quite haughty, hands resting confidently in her pockets as though they did not hold Osgood’s fate.

“There would be a certain…cachet,” she said, “in having a noblewoman as my personal servant.”

The words hung in the air. They made no sense, no matter how many times Osgood repeated them in her head.

“I—I’ve never done—”Anything. Folded a bedsheet. Dusted a counter. Served at dinner.

“You’re a bright girl,” Captain Stewart said briskly. “I’m sure you could figure it out.” 

“Thank you,” Osgood breathed. She could feel gratitude and giddiness bubbling up inside her, even as doubt wound a tendril through her thoughts. “Truly. It’s kind of you, more than I deserve; I only—”

“I’m not a music hall pirate,” Kate interrupted. Her voice was ice, and Osgood’s voice broke off as Kate’s gaze locked back onto hers, dark eyes flashing. “You should keep that in mind. I earn my bread by theft and ransom. It’s a bloody business, and people get hurt. Killed, if necessary.”

Osgood took a stutter-step backwards, her heart hammering. What had she done wrong? She had thought Kate wanted her to go, she had thought the last two weeks had been—they were not friends, obviously, but she had thought there had been—but now the older woman was looking at Osgood with her face like an iron mask, like she was a stranger—

“You should consider if that is a kind of life to which you could accommodate yourself for three years,” the captain said. 

Osgood seized on the number; numbers were things she could understand. “Three years?”

Captain Stewart looked away.

“I was expecting a substantial ransom,” she said in clipped tones. “And lady’s maids are not paid particularly handsomely, as you may have been told.”

She had not been told. She had never asked. Why had she never asked Clara about things like this, why had she only been obsessed with the shape of her mouth and the sparkle of her eyes, why—

Osgood opened her mouth, not sure what she was going to say. “I—”

The captain rode over her words. “We sail tomorrow. I’ll expect your answer by this evening.”

#

“Well, there’s no choice at all,” Chloe said. “You’ll take the money.”

Osgood gritted her teeth. “I’m thinking about it.”

“There’s nothing to think about!”

If only she hadn’t let Chloe worm the details of the conversation out of her. But if she hadn’t told Chloe what the captain had said, then her sister would have assumed Osgood had spent the half hour out of her sight being forced into the kind of degrading acts only hinted at in the scandal sheets Chloe pretended she didn’t read.

Or that Osgood had volunteered for them.

Osgood tried to unclench her jaw. She needed to think. If she just applied logic to the problem—but Chloe had been at her for hours, and all her thoughts ran into each other like clumsy watercolors, and the sun was about to set, and Kate would be here soon—

“Petronella, tell me you understand there’s nothing to think about!”

Osgood looked up at Chloe. Her older sister, normally so put together, was pacing back and forth in the alcove off the courtyard where she had button-holed Osgood immediately upon her return. Several strands of hair had come loose from her twist, and her fingers were shaking in their gloves.

Was she actually worried…?

Something in Osgood’s bruised heart unfurled a little, a flower seeking just a bit of light.

“It’s only that I don’t know anything,” she said, willing her sister to understand. “Anything useful, I mean. They hand me the money, and then I go out of here, in a city where I don’t know the language or the currency—”

She hugged her arms close to her body. She could see a thousand endings to that story: mugged in an alleyway, dragged into a house of ill repute, picked up by the constabulary for begging and sentenced to the mines.

Chloe stamped her foot. “Get one of the servants to help you—”

“And why would they do that?” Osgood asked. Her fingers pressed tight into her arms. “What’s in it for any of them? Not a one of them knows me—” their parents had insisted on it, that new servants be engaged, to avoid gossip following in their wake; Chloe had followed their lead, and barely let Osgood say two words to any of them—“Why should they care?”

Chloe’s jaw worked. “Fine.” Her teeth gritted: “You should agree to train as a courtesan.”

Osgood felt the ground drop away from under her.

“You—” she stuttered. “You—after everything you insisted on—after everything Mother and Father said—all your insinuations—you _hypocrite—_ ”

“I’m trying to protect you, Petronella!” Chloe hissed. “How you can think such a thing of me—it’s a school, isn’t it? She said you pick your suitors? All you have to do is delay; a child could do it. When I’m home, I’ll be able to talk to Mother and Father, they’ll see that this isn’t the way. We’ll bring you back before anything—”

“You’d come for me?”

“Yes!”

“Like you came for me last time?”

Chloe went white.

For a second, Osgood felt almost guilty.

Then Chloe’s face locked tight as a cell door. She strode towards Osgood, her eyes flashing. Osgood backed up a step—ridiculous, Chloe wouldn’t strike her—

“You cannot seriously be thinking of going with that woman,” she said, her voice low and dangerous. “Use your brain, Petronella! She wants you for a servant—what do you know about service? She wants you for one thing and one thing only. She might have restrained herself when she thought Mother and Father would pay more for you undamaged, but now that she knows you’re no better than you should be—”

Osgood’s face burned, her lungs protested. “She’s not—” she wheezed. “She’s not like that—”

“She wants you for her crew then, for their use. I imagine that’d be quite the morale booster—”

“S—s—stop,” Osgood begged. She pressed her hands over her ears, fingers digging into her hair. “You don’t care, you don’t—”

_Don’t care if I’m used, as long as it’s by someone with a title and gold, as long as you can pretend it’s respectable, as long as it’s happening far away from you and you never have to see—_

“I don’t care, that’s rich! You’re the one who doesn’t care what you do to this family, to me—”

“I believe she told you to stop.”

Both sisters swung around at the cool voice not six feet from them.

Captain Stewart stood between them and the rest of the courtyard, Shindi and the second mate, Bishop, a few steps behind her. She slid her hands into her pockets and looked from Chloe to Osgood, frowning. “This looks like a time when you should be taking your medicine.”

Chloe bristled. “She doesn’t need you to tell—”

Kate’s right hand drifted, very casually, to rest on the hilt of her sword.

Chloe’s jaw shut with an audible click.

“I’m—fine,” Osgood managed. She wasn’t fine. Her hands were shaking and she could see small black dots at the corners of her vision. But she couldn’t let the captain see—if Chloe was right, and she didn’t think Chloe was right, but if she was, if the captain saw the weakness-- “I just—had a moment. I’m fine.”

Kate continued to regard her intently, but with a coolness that made Osgood’s heart sink. “Have you come to a decision?”

“I—” Panic bubbled up inside her chest. How could she choose? What did she know? “I—”

She wanted to trust Kate so badly, wanted to believe in that kind steadiness she had shown aboard her ship, wanted to brush aside the sudden chill that had come into Kate’s eyes, but—

_I’m not a music hall pirate._

_Now that she knows you’re no better than you should be—_

And then Chloe made her decision for her.

“Take me instead!” 

Her older sister launched herself at Captain Stewart, attempting to drape herself over the woman’s waist as her knees hit the ground next to her feet.

Kate stepped back quickly out of reach, her face registering mild alarm, as though Chloe’s hands were cheap wine that might stain her waistcoat.

“I beg your pardon?” she said.

“I will take my sister’s place,” Chloe declared. “The brokers need not know which daughter is the heir—she can travel safely home, and our parents will not turn her away once she is there. I will—” A deep breath. “I will endure whatever I must to see her safe.”

Osgood wanted to vomit.

But of course everyone else was taken in. Chloe had declaimed her passionate speech loudly enough that many admiring glances were being cast her way from the courtyard, and even Shindi and Bishop did not seem unmoved. And now it was all going to be Chloe’s way regardless of what Osgood would have ended up choosing, because who wouldn’t choose Chloe—pretty Chloe, bright Chloe, brave and noble Chloe—over her; any second now Kate Stewart would…

Kate looked at Chloe with complete and utter disinterest. 

“No thank you,” she said.

It was the first time Osgood had ever seen her sister refused.

Chloe made a face that looked as though she had run into an invisible wall. Her hands twitched in the air, frozen in imploring gesture. Her mouth worked, but no words came.

Kate turns to Osgood. “Is she always this dramatic?”

Osgood managed to get in an entire breath for the first time in the last several minutes. “Frequently.”

“Seems exhausting,” Kate said. “At least, with all three options, you will not have to deal with her anymore.” She raised an eyebrow. “You were about to say…?”

She was looking directly at Osgood, waiting. She was looking directly at Osgood and she saw someone she wanted with her, and if Osgood did not entirely know the reasons, this was still something she had never had before.

She took another breath.

“I would like to accept your offer.”


End file.
